Interview with Gino Kenny December 16, 2016

…from Hot Press, conducted by Jason O’Toole. And a lot in there. Gino Kenny, People Before Profit TD has, as the piece notes introduced the Bill on medicinal cannabis in the Dáil and saw it progress to the point where it will get to committee stage. As the interview notes gaining the support of Government TDs:

… was doubtless influenced by the fact that some members of the wider cabinet had publicly backed the idea of making cannabis available for medicinal purposes during recent Hot Press interviews, including John Halligan, Finian McGrath and junior finance minister Eoghan Murphy.

A lot in the interview,

Do you think it was right that Joan Burton was held hostage inside her car by anti-water charge protestors?
The whole thing was overblown. People have a right to protest. Some of it did get out of hand. But the thing was exaggerated. Nobody wants to see things thrown at people because it’s counterproductive. But people were terribly angry about the water charges and particularly the role of the Labour Party.

And:

Will you support the ASTI strike if it goes ahead?
Of course.Can a strike like that ever be wrong?
I don’t think so, Jay. People don’t go out and strike for the sake of it. They strike for a reason. I will always stand shoulder-to-shoulder with people that go on strike, because they’re going out for pay and conditions or a wrong-doing by their employer.

And:

So, would you like to see Ireland leave the EU?
Europe is good, and co-operating is good, and working together for the greater good is good. But the European Union has taken a new façade of corporate structures and dictating to people – and that’s not the European Union that most people signed up to. It’s becoming less friendly towards nation states. But if you had a referendum in this country I don’t think it would pass to leave the union.But what’s your own view?
My personal view? I think in the future we’ll probably have to leave.

And:

What are you thoughts about Fidel Castro?
I would’ve grown up very inspired by the Cuban revolution, by Che Guevara and Castro. I know there’s a romantic notion of the revolution – and it was a good revolution. But the reality of the Cuban revolution was afterwards the Cuban people were quite isolated. We look towards the Cuban system for their health care system and education system. They did punch above their weight. But Castro wasn’t ultimately a socialist: he was more of a radical. He wasn’t my hero. Che Guevara was my hero. He was a good man.Was Castro right to hold onto power in the way that he did, and not to have free elections?
No. The essence of socialism is democracy. If you don’t have democracy you don’t have socialism. There would’ve been oppression of other political parties in Cuba and that’s wrong. You

“Was Castro right to hold onto power in the way that he did, and not to have free elections?
No. The essence of socialism is democracy. If you don’t have democracy you don’t have socialism. There would’ve been oppression of other political parties in Cuba and that’s wrong.”

Genuine question here, is the SWP in favour of alternation of power with bourgeois parties, or is Gino just not up to speed on his Leninist political education?

Frankly, it depends what is meant by democracy, and the all too general confusion of ‘state’ and ‘government’. The first is the machinery for maintaining class rule. The second is the body it allows to administer that rule. The state will, more or less, allow that the government be elected by a majority of all over a certain age (‘democracy’) whatever their class position. However, if such an assembly comes too close to imperilling capitalist rule, the state will suppress it.
A state owing its allegiance to the democratic support of the working people of a country and structured accordingly must be built to guide the formal democracy.
I would expect that that is what was behind Gino Kenny’s statement.